Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Foreign correspondence', Gardeners' chronicle, 15 March 1979, p. 344 (B79.03.01). The letter is dated to January as the latest likely date that it could have been sent to have been published in this issue.

Melbourne:

The Maria Palm. — Mr. John Forrest, the renowned explorer, while recently engaged in triangulations through the country inland of Nichol Bay,

2

WA.

secured at my request the seeds of a Palm, which prove to be those of a Livistona and identical with L. Mariae of the Macdonnell Ranges in Central Australia. This noble Palm was dedicated to H.R.H. the Duchess of Edinburgh, and we shall soon be able to place it along with L. australe and the Alexandra Palm in European conservatories. It attains a height of 60 feet, the leaves being as much as 6 feet long. It is remarkable that no Fan-Palms are known from the north coast of Australia, all being confined to the eastern coast regions of this continent, except the Maria Palm, which seems quite restricted to a solitary locality in Central and in West Australia. The Palm in question is fully described in the last (eighty-ninth) number of my Fragmenta, wherein also

Ptychosperma Normanbyana

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is described,

3

B78.11.04, pp. 54, 56 respectively.

the examination of its flowers showing it to belong to this genus, and not to Areca, as was supposed when the fruit only was known. It is the same as the

Saguerus australasicus

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of Wendland and Drude.